“It ain’t over ’til it’s over,” said baseball great Yogi Berra.
First, the 2nd District Court of Appeal declined June 12 to hear a Holmes Beach tree house owners’ petition, an appeal to reverse an earlier circuit court decision.
The tree house owners appealed the denial.
In a one-sentence July 22 order, the 2nd DCA wrote, “Petitioners motion for certification and issuance of a written opinion is denied.”
But the owners attorney, David Levin, filed yet another motion with the DCA July 30, asking again for a hearing on the tree house case. The motion asks the court to reconsider the July 22 denial of the owner’s petition for a written opinion.
A denial deprives the tree house owners an appeal to the Florida Supreme Court, but the decision likely will not end the deeply rooted case.
Levin, of Icard, Merrill, Cullis, Timm, Furen & Ginsburg, of Sarasota, on behalf of Richard Hazen and Lynn Tran, brought the case to the DCA in October 2014, appealing 12th Circuit Court Judge Janette Dunnigan’s decision that upheld a July 2013 city code board ruling.
The July 22 denial triggered Holmes Beach Mayor Bob Johnson to direct city attorney Patricia Petruff at the July 29 city meeting to move forward on hiring a magistrate to address the reaminder of tree house issues after the appeal.
Tran and Hazen built the 400-500 square foot two-story tree house on their beachfront rental property at 103 29th St. in 2011 without state or city building permits, leading to city code board, Florida Department of Environmental Protection and court cases.
“It’s finished in the court system, but not finished,” Petruff said July 28, prior to Levin filing yet another DCA request for a written opinion and certification to the Florida Supreme Court.
Holmes Beach filed a response July 6 asking the court to deny the owners’ requests for a DCA opinion, and is likely to do so again.
The city will likely wait for the appeal court outcome to initiate its hearings.
Attempts to reach Levin by email and phone for comment were unsuccessful.
The 2nd DCA is based in Lakeland at 1005 E. Memorial Blvd.
— Reporter Kristin Swain contributed to this story.